Upscaler version 1.3.0 was just released! The release is pretty large and includes some nice features and visual improvements:

- Introduce queue system to allow users to upscale images right after the other
- Add branding colors
- Port to latest Adwaita widgets
- Allow dropping remote images
- Allow pasting images from clipboard
- Make window draggable from anywhere
- Delete temporary file when unused
- Switch to Upscayl-NCNN from Real-ESRGAN ncnn Vulkan
- Update and rework translation
- Add Bulgarian translation

Unfortunately, I completely forgot that the GNOME 47 runtime isn't released yet. The update will be available later once the GNOME 47 runtime is out. If you want to try it out, you can build it from source (roughly a few minutes) using GNOME Builder: gitlab.gnome.org/World/Upscale…

#GNOME #libadwaita #GTK4 #FOSS #OpenSource #OSS #Upscale

The user "neeeeow" ported Bluecurve, the desktop theme used in Red Hat Linux 8/9 and Fedora Core up to 4, to GTK3/4.

Supports #XFCE and #MATE

github.com/neeeeow/Bluecurve

#linux #ui #2000s #foss

For those on the beta channel, NVDA 2024.4 Beta 3 is available for testing. LibLouis has been updated fixing issues in Spanish and adding new Thai and Greek tables. There are also updates to NVDA translations. Read the full info and download at: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-4b… (Note that Beta 2 released last week included the add-on update check fix included in 2024.3.1 today).

#NVDA #NVDAsr #Beta #FOSS #PreRelease #Update

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2024.3.1 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version.

This is a patch release to fix a bug with the automatic add-on update notification. When automatically checking for add-on updates, NVDA no longer freezes on poor connections.

Full details and download at: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-3-…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Patch #BugFix #FOSS #New

Okay, so I just have to rant about something that I think is going to hold the Linux Desktop back a bit, especially for blind users. That is config files. Specifically, editing some file that's got no kind of linter, or checker, to make sure that whatever the user put in it works and doesn't leave one without speech.

So, this is specifically about the Speech dispatcher, which is a package in Linux a bit like Microsoft's SAPI. Of course, there's that new one, Spiel, that's being worked on, but I've not tried it yet. So, you can run spd-conf to set up a config file, but a lot of folks tell me that, in order to increase the default speech rate for stuff like games that use speech-dispatcher, web apps that speak through speech-dispatcher, self-voicing apps, I'd have to edit the config file.

Now, that's not awful for me, I can do it. But there really, really needs to be a GUI for it. And if you ask *me* why I don't make it myself, I'll tell you that if it's so easy, you should have made it with the snap of *your* tallented fingers, instead of spending all that time being a reply-guy. Windows has a speech properties dialog. Mac has Spoken Content in System Settings. Linux should have something similar. And, if it turns out that there is and I just don't have the proper package installed, I'll gladly change my tune to "distros should have this installed by default."

I've also seen this in Emacs packages like Ellama, where you have to set up Emacs Lisp calls to the right function with the right parameters inside your usepackage block, and it's hard for me to figure out how to add the openAI-compatible service that I have to Ellama. And AI hasn't helped yet.

So, having things being customizable is amazing. It really is. There are so many keyboard configuration settings, for example, that I think blind people are going to love playing with. But goodness, there needs to be something to change your system TTS stuff, and hopefully one day we can have a command to turn on and off the screen, like the iOS screen curtain so we can maintain privacy.

#Linux #accessibility #blind #LinuxDesktop #foss #tts

Our In-Process blog is out. Today we have a reminder of NVDA 2024.3, info on NVDA 2024.4 and our Beta / RC program, details of the upcoming SPEVI conference 2025 and a walkthrough of creating a portable copy and the highly anticipated change to the process which now creates a folder for you.

Read now at: nvaccess.org/post/in-process-5…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #FOSS #Portability #Portable #Bea #PreRelease #News #Blog #Newsletter

Oh, thank goodness not having a fully functional screen reader isn’t a blocker for Fedora 41. We wouldn’t want them to miss their 10th anniversary of shipping an operating system without a fully functional screen reader, after all.

ar.al/2024/06/23/fedora-has-be…

#Fedora #RedHat #IBM #a11y #accessibility #screenReader #orca #linux #openSource #FOSS #ableism masto.ai/@phoronix/11307885166…

Something I really like about Forgejo is how seriously they are taking software freedom.
- They use Forgejo itself as their git forge, not GitHub
- No reliance or linking to proprietary corporate services such as Patreon, Twitter, Facebook etc. They use Mastodon and Liberapay.
- No Dockerhub, their OCI images are on Codeberg.
- No Discord! (really hate how many FOSS projects use it)
- Their documentation does not recommend proprietary developer tools such as VSCode or Sublime Text.
- They recently switched to a copyleft license

Very refreshing, considering how many other popular git forges are either proprietary or "open-core"

#Forgejo #Codeberg #FOSS #Git #GitHub

Some updates on my #Libervia work:

- Kicked off #email #gateway project (nlnet.nl/project/EmailXMPPgate…) using IMAP/STMP. Basic gateway should be coming soon.
- Preparing next major release: web frontend design & internal improvements in progress. The release will be *huge*.
- Started new desktop frontend; more details to follow.
- Aiming to resume blogging and weekly videos this week, if time allows.
- Targeting a Libervia-based service by the end of the year.

#XMPP #nlnet #FOSS #decentralization

NVDA 2024.4 Beta 2 is now available. Changes from Beta 1:

- The stability of NVDA’s Poedit support has been improved with the side effect that the minimum required version of Poedit is now version 3.5.

- NVDA is no longer as sluggish when arrowing up & down through large files in VS Code.

- NVDA no longer freezes while checking for add-on updates.

- Updates to translations.

Please go to nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-4b… for the full what's new & to download.

#NVDA #NVDAsr #Beta #FOSS #ScreenReader

It just occurred to me that none of the classic #InstantMessaging systems are still running. #ICQ, #AOLInstantMessenger, #YahooMessenger, and #MSNMessenger are all gone. I have lost contact with all my old friends there. I doubt I'll ever hear from them again.

The #OpenSource, #federated competitor to these protocols, #XMPP, remains in operation and has outlived them all. So did #IRC, the protocol that arguably inspired them.

Proprietary software and protocols come and go, but #FOSS endures.

This week in Plasma: inhibiting inhibitions and more!

pointieststick.com/2024/08/30/…

@kde@floss.social @kde@lemmy.kde.social
#KDE #Plasma #KDEPlasma #Linux #FOSS #OpenSource

NVDA 2024.4 Beta 1 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

For full information and to download, go to: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-4b…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Beta #FOSS #PreRelease

If us users don't contribute to #foss software - using it, reporting bugs, providing feedback, donating whatever amount, choosing it over a closed source & more - at the end, it will be big corps & monopolies running our digital lives.

Last week, I used @organicmaps and @openstreetmap for my navigation. Added over 7 new spots (hotels, parks, POI's & more), making these maps & the app, a little more useful for us all. Also, quite happy to see that most places I visited where already there!

For those who use IBM TTS on Linux. Get the IBMTTS dictionaries, copy them to /var/opt/IBM/ibmtts/dict, change files like this, from Enu-main.dic to main.dct. And then it should work. Do change the rest of those files too. Root and abbreviantion. Oh yeah enu-abbr.dic should be abbreviation.dct. So: abbreviation.dct main.dct root.dct.

#linux #foss #accessibility #IBMTTS #blind

I really like the idea of, instead of collaborating on a document via (for example) Google's servers and Google Docs, being able to have collaborators' computers talk to each other directly and share edits that way.

I really hope that "local-first" gains at least the sort of steam the FOSS movement has — as I've seen people comment, FOSS doesn't help if your computation is happening on someone else's computer.

wired.com/story/the-cloud-is-a…

#LocalFirst #Cloud #CloudComputing #FOSS #Libre

#Catima 2.31.1 is out!

This is a very minor release, containing a community-contributed fix for the back gesture on the home screen dismissing both the keyboard and clearing the search. Long story short, you can now hide the keyboard without clearing the search, allowing for easier browsing of your cards.

It also contains some minor community-contributed cleanups.

Available now on #GitHub, very soon on #IzzyOnDroid and hopefully soon on other supported app stores.

#Android #FOSS

New major release! #LibreOffice 24.8 is the private, free office suite which includes:

✅ Handy "Quick find" deck in the Sidebar
✅ New spreadsheet functions, including XLOOKUP
✅ Better presentation templates

...plus many other new features, fixes and compatibility improvements. Find out more and download it: blog.documentfoundation.org/bl… #foss #opensource #news

9th graders learn Linux for the environment!

Last week in #Hannover, #KDEEco joined Akademie der Spiele, an event for 200+ students with 20+ career/cultural workshops.

Students salvaged dozens of computers with #OpenSource #FreeSoftware.

They learned about the #environmental costs of #eWaste and device production.

They presented their work to peers and teachers!

Some even played games🚀

We're proud of our students - congrats for all you achieved in only 5 days!

@kde

#KDE #FOSS #OptGreen

I won a contest @libreoffice held, and I got all this KILLER LibreOffice swag from them.

I've used LibreOffice for so many years, from back in the mid 2000s when it was OpenOffice. It's better than Microsoft Office. It's totally free and open source, and you don't have to be logged in like you do now with Office.

Try it out if you haven't, you won't regret it.

libreoffice.org

#LibreOffice #OpenSource #FOSS